Here is another example of the paradox of our being in Afghanistan. Can someone tell me why we should still be there? In addition, General Stanley McChrystal has recently hamstrung Special Forces operations in Afghanistan for "being out of control". Hello General--who's fault is that?
We continue to A. Fight a stupid war and
B. Handicap our troops at every opportunity
The end result is more young Americans being killed for NOTHING. How long before the American public is going to wake up, stand up and protest?
George Harris
Afghan poppy harvest is next challenge for U.S. Marines
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MARJAH, Afghanistan — U.S. Marine Sgt. Brad Vandehei stood on the edge of the small opium poppy field that serves as a central helicopter landing zone for the new military compound that's rising nearby.
"Those are poppies, sir?" Vandehei, 25, of Green Bay, Wis., asked Maj. David Fennell as they gazed at the spiked young plants that should be ready for harvest next month. "Let's burn it down, sir."
Fennell was scoping things out for another reason, however: That morning, the poppy farmer turned up with a dozen neighbors to complain about the Marines transforming his lucrative field into a rural helipad.
The swift American-led military offensive that drove the Taliban from power in this southern Afghan farm belt came at an inopportune time for the area's poppy farmers. That's created a quandary for Marjah's new, U.S.-backed leaders and for the American military as they try to transform this sweltering river valley, whose biggest cash crop is opium poppy, into a tranquil breadbasket.
"The helicopters are landing in my field," the weathered farmer told Fennell as they sat in the dirt outside the Marines' newest forward operating base in Marjah. "You have to stop landing there. Next time, the Taliban will put an IED in the field," an improvised explosive device, the military's term for a homemade bomb.
Using his skills as one-time trial lawyer, a few essential Pashto words and an evolving understanding of local tribal culture, Fennell sought to reassure the farmer.
"I apologize for your inconvenience," the 36-year-old Denver reservist told the farmer. "We're here to provide security, and one person must be inconvenienced to provide security for 1,000. But we're not like the Taliban. We're not just going to take; we're going to compensate you."
Unswayed, the Marjah men again pressed Fennell to stop using the field as a landing zone. When it became clear that the Marine wasn't going to budge, they asked for money to pay for the damaged poppy field.
"We're not here to eradicate your poppies, but we won't pay for damage to your poppies," Fennell said. "What we will do is pay for the inconvenience and for any damage to your wheat."
Marjah leaders and the U.S. Marines so far have no clear answers for farmers such as these. The Marines and the new Marjah government are still trying to figure out how to persuade poppy growers not to harvest their crops this spring.
"We are entering the poppy harvest season, which will also put us at great risk for having instability," Marine Col. Randy Newman warned Marjah leaders this past weekend. "So we must talk to the people with one voice about how we will deal with the poppy."
For years, Marjah has been the center of the drug trade in Afghanistan, which provides about 90 percent of the world's opium. About 50 percent of Afghanistan's poppy crop is grown in surrounding Helmand province, and much of the multi-billion-dollar industry is centered in and around Marjah.
The opium trade supports tens of thousands of local farmers and fuels the Taliban, who taxed the crops to pay for weapons and supplies.
"If I was a farmer here I'd be growing poppies," said Mike Courtney, the senior field director in Marjah for Adam Smith International, a global consulting firm that's working in Afghanistan. "It's a Catch-22. How do you win over the population and, at the same time, stop the drug trade?"
U.S. officials largely have given up on destroying Afghanistan's poppy fields as the best way to combat the drug trade. Razing the fields was seen as counterproductive.
Instead, the American-led coalition in Afghanistan launched programs meant to encourage farmers to plant wheat, cotton and other alternative crops. They've had modest success.
The wheat-for-poppy projects have been undermined by corrupt Afghan officials who've given mediocre fertilizer and inferior seeds to farmers and have siphoned off money for themselves.
At the end of the day, poppy brings in more money most years than wheat or cotton does.
"The opium issue takes time," said Haji Abdul Zahir, the newly appointed district governor of Marjah. "It's like if you swat a bee, 1,000 bees will come and sting you. It takes time to stop the drug trade. But we won't do it through eradication."
The Marines have developed a new plan to hand out modest grants to farmers who show that they're planting legal crops. The grants — some $500 per hectare, about two and a half acres — don't compare with the money made from poppy harvests in good years, however.
Plowing under the poppies also could be a dangerous gamble for farmers who took money from drug dealers and Taliban financiers, who might come back to collect the harvest.
At the moment, Afghan and U.S. leaders are betting that the insurgents won't feel bold enough to come looking for their poppies if they have to deal with thousands of American and Afghan fighters.
Some officials have suggested that they simply buy this year's harvest and take it off the streets. Buying millions of dollars in opium could be politically unpalatable, however.
"There's a problem with buying it. There's a problem with burning it," said Marine Capt. Matthew Andrew, of Boise, Idaho, the 30-year-old judge advocate for the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. "The larger problem is security. If they don't have poppies, there's no point in sticking around. The real test is going to be next year."
As the farmers pressed Fennell last weekend to pay for the damaged poppies, he pulled out another weapon in his verbal arsenal: guilt.
"We're not here to eradicate any poppies," Fennell told the men. "But we're worried, because we've seen the addiction to opium among Afghans and we know that good Muslims don't want that."
The men shifted uncomfortably and assured Fennell that they agreed. Then they asked him again to stop helicopter landings in the poppy field.
Fennell patiently told the men that that wasn't going to happen. He asked them to figure out what they thought was a fair price for the adjacent wheat field.
He's still waiting for them to return.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Al-Qaida Calls on US Muslims to Attack
I am normally a pretty peaceful guy, but if ever there was a reason to mount a special ops mission to snuff someone, this is it. We need to cancel this bastard's stamp NOW. Everyone of these jerks that we allow to continue to run their mouth, you can rest assured it is going to cost us some lives somewhere just as it it at Fort Hood. People are still denying that Nidal Hasan (he doesn't deserve to be called Major) is a terrorist. What they don't understand, they call crazy. But what they REALLY don't understand is that people like Adam Gadahn, or whatever he calls himself, will incite more folks to do just what Hasan did.
So let's get it over with, then we can get on with denying it.
George
Al-Qaida Calls on US Muslims to Attack
March 07, 2010
Associated Press
CAIRO - Al-Qaida's American-born spokesman on Sunday called on Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces to emulate the Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood.
In a 25-minute video posted on militant Web sites, Adam Gadahn described Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should serve as a role model for other Muslims, especially those serving Western militaries.
"Brother Nidal is the ideal role-model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes," he said.
Gadahn, also known as Azzam al-Amriki, was dressed in white robes and wearing a white turban as he called for attacks on what he described as "high-value targets."
"You shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage," he said, an assault rifle leaning up against a wall next to him.
Hasan has been charged in the Nov. 5 shooting that killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist remains paralyzed from the chest down after being shot by two civilian members of Fort Hood's police force.
"Nidal Hasan is a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers," Gadahn said.
Gadahn grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County. He has been wanted by the FBI since 2004 and two years later was charged with treason. There is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
He has in the past posted videos and messages calling for the destruction of the West and for strikes against targets in the United States. His location is unknown, but he is believed to be somewhere along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In the latest video, Gadahn said those planning attacks did not need to use only firearms like Hasan, but could use other weapons. "As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a limited budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon."
Gadahn said fighters should target mass transportation systems in the West and also wreak havoc "by killing or capturing people in government, industry and the media."
He recommended finding ways to shake "consumer confidence and stifle spending" and noted that even unsuccessful attacks, such as the failed attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas day, can bring major cities to a halt.
"I am calling on every honest and vigilant Muslim in the countries of the Zionist-Crusader alliance in general and America, Britain and Israel in particular to prepare to play his due role in responding to and repelling the aggression of the enemies of Islam," Gadahn said.
So let's get it over with, then we can get on with denying it.
George
Al-Qaida Calls on US Muslims to Attack
March 07, 2010
Associated Press
CAIRO - Al-Qaida's American-born spokesman on Sunday called on Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces to emulate the Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood.
In a 25-minute video posted on militant Web sites, Adam Gadahn described Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should serve as a role model for other Muslims, especially those serving Western militaries.
"Brother Nidal is the ideal role-model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes," he said.
Gadahn, also known as Azzam al-Amriki, was dressed in white robes and wearing a white turban as he called for attacks on what he described as "high-value targets."
"You shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage," he said, an assault rifle leaning up against a wall next to him.
Hasan has been charged in the Nov. 5 shooting that killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist remains paralyzed from the chest down after being shot by two civilian members of Fort Hood's police force.
"Nidal Hasan is a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers," Gadahn said.
Gadahn grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County. He has been wanted by the FBI since 2004 and two years later was charged with treason. There is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
He has in the past posted videos and messages calling for the destruction of the West and for strikes against targets in the United States. His location is unknown, but he is believed to be somewhere along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In the latest video, Gadahn said those planning attacks did not need to use only firearms like Hasan, but could use other weapons. "As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a limited budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon."
Gadahn said fighters should target mass transportation systems in the West and also wreak havoc "by killing or capturing people in government, industry and the media."
He recommended finding ways to shake "consumer confidence and stifle spending" and noted that even unsuccessful attacks, such as the failed attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas day, can bring major cities to a halt.
"I am calling on every honest and vigilant Muslim in the countries of the Zionist-Crusader alliance in general and America, Britain and Israel in particular to prepare to play his due role in responding to and repelling the aggression of the enemies of Islam," Gadahn said.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
How many is enough
I haven't posted anything for a while, mostly because I have been involved in things here at home. The bombing in Baghdad in the past few days as early voting begins there forced me to ask myself how many more have to die before this all ends. In addition, this article in the Charlotte Observer about a speech by General David Petraeus made this question even more pressing.
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Petraeus predicts 'a hard year' of war in Afghanistan
By Peter St. Onge
pstonge@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Wednesday, Mar. 03, 2010
America is about to embark on the longest campaign in its longest war, the commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East told a Charlotte audience Tuesday.
Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, told a crowd of more than 550 at the Westin Charlotte that a civil and military counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, now revving up, will take about 12-18 months.
"This is going to be a hard year," he said.
Petraeus, armed with slides and laser pointer, took questions for about an hour at a luncheon hosted by the World Affairs Council of Charlotte. Most of the conversation centered on the war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001 and will pass the Vietnam War this month as the longest war abroad in American history, many historians say.
Petraeus was optimistic, however, of a positive outcome. The United States has learned from its counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq, he said, and many of that war's key figures are now in Afghanistan. They will be joined, eventually, by 30,000 additional American forces, as well as about 8,000 that NATO has committed.
Already, he said, the U.S. has killed "boatloads of bad guys" in Afghanistan, but cautioned: "You don't just kill and capture your way out." Recent strategy shifts emphasize limiting the loss of civilian lives, he said, helping the U.S. strengthen its relationship with Afghans.
The policy played a role in why the U.S. announced in advance the February invasion of one-time Taliban stronghold Marja. Some Taliban escaped in advance of the invasion, Petraeus acknowledged, but it allowed the U.S. to save the city from the destruction that full-scale fighting would have inflicted. "We didn't want to destroy Marja to save it," he said.
Petraeus, who did not answer questions from the media, was not asked by the audience about a NATO airstrike in February that killed at least 20 Afghan civilians. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, apologized for the deaths.
The war, Petraeus said, is a "hugely important endeavor," noting that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, took root in Afghanistan. "We can't let Afghanistan be a sanctuary or a safe haven again," he said.
Petraeus was asked about Iran's recent nuclear activity, which he said is prompting new sanctions and U.S. diplomatic pressure. "That's the focus right now," he said.
Also, one audience member asked about the general possibly running for president - a question posed regularly in political circles.
Petraeus, fresh off an appearance in Nashville, answered with a nod to country performer Lorrie Morgan, who sang: "What part of no don't you understand?"
As of Tuesday, March 2, 2010, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have claimed 5,383 young American service personnel. Another 36,837 have been wounded and many of them have what are euphemistically called “life altering injuries”. In other words, they have lost limbs or eyes (or both) or have suffered a traumatic brain injury that has wreaked havoc with their lives. MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) (when they are available) are saving the lives of our service personnel, but the ordinary M1A1 U.S. Service Member is still subject to devastating injury. Body armor and helmets do a pretty good job, but there are gaps in them and snipers have learned to exploit these vulnerabilities. There are many problems with the MRAPs—they’re big, unwieldy, extremely heavy, (72% of the worlds bridges won’t carry them) and they are hard to maneuver in the narrow streets of the cities, towns and villages our folks are fighting in.
In the ten years that the Soviets tried to subdue the Mujahideen, they lost just over 12,000 killed and some 35,478 wounded. No one knows how accurate these figures are, but they are very telling. And no one has a clue as to how many civilians were killed/maimed. Estimates run from just under 700,000 to over 2,000,000.
As to how many Afghanis and Iraqis have been killed in the latest wars is probably an onageristic estimate also. (This is my own term—an onager is a fast running wild ass of central Asia). The numbers look like this at last count (Feb 16, 2010):
Casualties in Afghanistan:
Afghan troops killed 8,587 Afghan troops seriously injured 25,761
Afghan civilians killed 8,309 Afghan civilians seriously injured 14,956
Total killed in Afghanistan: 16,896 Total injured in Afghanistan: 40,717
Casualties in Iraq:
Iraqi troops killed 30,000 Iraqi troops seriously injured 90,000
Iraqi civilians killed 815,411 Iraqi civilians seriously injured 1,467,740
Total killed in Iraq: 845,411 Total injured in Iraq: 1,557,740
(From “Unknown News” published by Helen and Harry Highwater: http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html)
How many is enough? Are we supposed to wait until we have enough deaths to justify building another memorial the size of the Vietnam Memorial, which has 58,261 names on it? Or will we be willing to settle for a smaller memorial listing those who did not have to die in a war that was fabricated and instigated with lies? Fifty-two thousand eight hundred seventy-eight is all we have to go. That’s about as many people as live in the Fargo, ND-Moorhead, MI area or the Lewiston, ID-Clarkston, WA area. It’s about as many registered Democrats as there are in all of Wyoming.
So again—How many is enough? I don't know, but would the last person who leaves please turn out the lights?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Petraeus predicts 'a hard year' of war in Afghanistan
By Peter St. Onge
pstonge@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Wednesday, Mar. 03, 2010
America is about to embark on the longest campaign in its longest war, the commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East told a Charlotte audience Tuesday.
Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, told a crowd of more than 550 at the Westin Charlotte that a civil and military counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, now revving up, will take about 12-18 months.
"This is going to be a hard year," he said.
Petraeus, armed with slides and laser pointer, took questions for about an hour at a luncheon hosted by the World Affairs Council of Charlotte. Most of the conversation centered on the war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001 and will pass the Vietnam War this month as the longest war abroad in American history, many historians say.
Petraeus was optimistic, however, of a positive outcome. The United States has learned from its counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq, he said, and many of that war's key figures are now in Afghanistan. They will be joined, eventually, by 30,000 additional American forces, as well as about 8,000 that NATO has committed.
Already, he said, the U.S. has killed "boatloads of bad guys" in Afghanistan, but cautioned: "You don't just kill and capture your way out." Recent strategy shifts emphasize limiting the loss of civilian lives, he said, helping the U.S. strengthen its relationship with Afghans.
The policy played a role in why the U.S. announced in advance the February invasion of one-time Taliban stronghold Marja. Some Taliban escaped in advance of the invasion, Petraeus acknowledged, but it allowed the U.S. to save the city from the destruction that full-scale fighting would have inflicted. "We didn't want to destroy Marja to save it," he said.
Petraeus, who did not answer questions from the media, was not asked by the audience about a NATO airstrike in February that killed at least 20 Afghan civilians. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, apologized for the deaths.
The war, Petraeus said, is a "hugely important endeavor," noting that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, took root in Afghanistan. "We can't let Afghanistan be a sanctuary or a safe haven again," he said.
Petraeus was asked about Iran's recent nuclear activity, which he said is prompting new sanctions and U.S. diplomatic pressure. "That's the focus right now," he said.
Also, one audience member asked about the general possibly running for president - a question posed regularly in political circles.
Petraeus, fresh off an appearance in Nashville, answered with a nod to country performer Lorrie Morgan, who sang: "What part of no don't you understand?"
As of Tuesday, March 2, 2010, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have claimed 5,383 young American service personnel. Another 36,837 have been wounded and many of them have what are euphemistically called “life altering injuries”. In other words, they have lost limbs or eyes (or both) or have suffered a traumatic brain injury that has wreaked havoc with their lives. MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) (when they are available) are saving the lives of our service personnel, but the ordinary M1A1 U.S. Service Member is still subject to devastating injury. Body armor and helmets do a pretty good job, but there are gaps in them and snipers have learned to exploit these vulnerabilities. There are many problems with the MRAPs—they’re big, unwieldy, extremely heavy, (72% of the worlds bridges won’t carry them) and they are hard to maneuver in the narrow streets of the cities, towns and villages our folks are fighting in.
In the ten years that the Soviets tried to subdue the Mujahideen, they lost just over 12,000 killed and some 35,478 wounded. No one knows how accurate these figures are, but they are very telling. And no one has a clue as to how many civilians were killed/maimed. Estimates run from just under 700,000 to over 2,000,000.
As to how many Afghanis and Iraqis have been killed in the latest wars is probably an onageristic estimate also. (This is my own term—an onager is a fast running wild ass of central Asia). The numbers look like this at last count (Feb 16, 2010):
Casualties in Afghanistan:
Afghan troops killed 8,587 Afghan troops seriously injured 25,761
Afghan civilians killed 8,309 Afghan civilians seriously injured 14,956
Total killed in Afghanistan: 16,896 Total injured in Afghanistan: 40,717
Casualties in Iraq:
Iraqi troops killed 30,000 Iraqi troops seriously injured 90,000
Iraqi civilians killed 815,411 Iraqi civilians seriously injured 1,467,740
Total killed in Iraq: 845,411 Total injured in Iraq: 1,557,740
(From “Unknown News” published by Helen and Harry Highwater: http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html)
How many is enough? Are we supposed to wait until we have enough deaths to justify building another memorial the size of the Vietnam Memorial, which has 58,261 names on it? Or will we be willing to settle for a smaller memorial listing those who did not have to die in a war that was fabricated and instigated with lies? Fifty-two thousand eight hundred seventy-eight is all we have to go. That’s about as many people as live in the Fargo, ND-Moorhead, MI area or the Lewiston, ID-Clarkston, WA area. It’s about as many registered Democrats as there are in all of Wyoming.
So again—How many is enough? I don't know, but would the last person who leaves please turn out the lights?
Monday, February 1, 2010
The face of suicide
Not all of this is about suicides, but it does tell some tragic stories. The last article is about Command Sergeant Major Samuel Rhodes who has ben to the dark place and returned. His admonition--all the money in the world won't help--leadership is the problem. Despite all the mouthings of our leaders, the stigma of mental illness, PTSD or whatever name you want to hang on these victims is still there. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the JCS knows damned well the problem is OPTEMPO and PERSTEMPO, yet we continue to stress our troops by repeated tours in a war that seems to have no end. Yes, some talks are going on and some troioips are coming out of Iraq, but some troops are still dying as the result of enemy action, some are among the walking dead,; their soul sucked out of them by their experiences and sadly some are dying by their own hand, haunted by the ghosts of this war.
George Harris
5 months after Iraq bloodbath, young veteran takes his life
By Cynthia Hubert Sacramento Bee
On March 7, 2007, Army Spc. Trevor Hogue was inside his barracks in Baghdad, describing his morning on the battlefield.
"I saw things today that I think will mess me up for life," Hogue typed to his mother, Donna, as she sat at her computer thousands of miles away from Iraq, in Granite Bay.
That day the young soldier, whose assignment included driving a Humvee through perhaps the most dangerous ZIP code on the globe, saw his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. Heads were cut off and limbs severed. It happened 30 yards in front of him, and he had never been so afraid, he told his mom.
"My arms are around you," Donna Hogue wrote. "You'll be alright."
But Hogue never really recovered. Last week, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the backyard of his childhood home. He was 24 years old.
According to the Army, soldiers are killing themselves at the highest rate in nearly three decades, surpassing the civilian suicide rate for the first time since the Vietnam War.
At least 128 U.S. soldiers killed themselves last year, a number that has risen four years in a row. The death toll could be even higher this year. Through April, 91 soldiers had committed suicide.
Hogue's death, because it occurred after he was discharged, is not included in those statistics. But his friends and loved ones believe he was a casualty of war as much as any soldier on active duty.
"You think that they are safe when they get back home," Donna Hogue said, tearfully reading printed messages that she and her son exchanged while he was at war. "They're not. The reality of the things that they experienced continues to haunt them."
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VA system ill-equipped to treat mental anguish of war, 2/5/07
Iraq War veteran Timothy Bowman, of the Illinois National Guard, committed suicide in November 2005. He had been home from the war only 8 months.
FORRESTON, Ill—A year ago on Thanksgiving morning, in the corrugated metal pole barn that housed his family's electrical business, Timothy Bowman put a handgun to his head and pulled the trigger. The bullet only grazed his forehead. So he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger again.
He had been home from the Iraq war for only eight months. Once a fun-loving, life-of-the-party type, Bowman had slipped into an abyss, tormented by things he'd been ordered to do in war.
"I'm OK. I can deal with it," he would say whenever his father, Mike, urged him to get counseling.
A young warrior who spent months patrolling the treacherous highway that runs between the Baghdad airport and the city's fortified Green Zone, Tim received several medals and is set to be posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.
"Tim always referred to the National Guard soldiers as the Army's disposable soldiers," his father, Mike Bowman, said. "Six months of training to kill, 12 months of the nastiest duty in Iraq and then two weeks that the Army gave them to be re-educated back to civilian life.
"It's not humanly possible to readjust to civilian life with that type of treatment," he said.
In the small town of Grundy Center, Iowa, Randy and Ellen Omvig keep a large plastic freezer bag. Inside is a piece of torn paper with "Mom & Dad" written at the top.
When she first saw it in December 2005, Ellen thought it was a Christmas list from her son Josh, who had just walked out the front door.
Then she read the words:
"Don't think this is because of you," it said. "You did the best you could with me. The faces and the voices just won't go away."
The note indicated Josh's imminent suicide and went on to apologize for the pain he would cause. He said he had just received a driving-while-intoxicated charge—a surprise since he rarely drank. "This kills all hope of becoming a police officer that I ever had," he wrote.
By the time Ellen realized what the note was about, she ran outside. Josh was getting in his truck. She grabbed the side mirror, yelling hysterically that he would have to run her over before driving away. He yelled back, about a friend who had been killed in Iraq.
"Your battle buddy would not want you to die," she screamed.
"Mom, you don't understand," he said. "I've been dead ever since I left Iraq."
Josh shot himself in the head a few seconds later, as a police officer—and close friend—pulled up. His case made local headlines and has since become the inspiration for legislation in Congress to better prevent veteran suicides.
Josh Omvig had been a happy kid who signed up for the Army Reserves the day after he turned 18. He spent an intense 10 months in Iraq and then suddenly was home again. In the space of six days, he went from serving in Iraq to sitting at his family's Thanksgiving dinner table.
In the 13 months that followed, it was clear that Josh had changed. His parents urged him to get help. But he was convinced that showing up at the VA would go on his record, costing him a career in the military and law enforcement.
The Omvigs believe the nation faces a cascade of mental health problems.
"There are so many Joshes coming back now," Randy Omvig said.
In many respects, the Omvigs' story is remarkably similar to that of the Bowmans', whose son Tim killed himself on Thanksgiving Day in 2005.
It's impossible to know what goes through the mind of any suicidal veteran, or whether care would have made a difference. But as he tries to rebuild his life without his son, Mike Bowman is convinced that even a little care would have been better than none.
Tim Bowman joined the National Guard after Sept. 11 but before the Iraq war.
He was a charming jokester, a small-town kid who played musical instruments in high school, attended some junior college and then went to work in his family's electrical business in Polo, Ill.
He left for the war on March 4, 2004, his 22nd birthday.
Over the next 12 months, his assignments varied, but among them was helping patrol Route Irish, the treacherous airport highway. He told his father about having to bag body parts.
In his communications back home, Tim became an expert at withholding the details of his reality. He did open up once, however. Home for a short leave, Tim and his father stopped for a beer after a softball game. They got into their deepest conversation about the war and even talked about an episode in which Tim, as the last line of defense, said he was forced to shoot at a car—with a family inside—that had failed to stop at a checkpoint.
"He was really quiet as he told me—not at all the normal Tim," his father said. (His commander at the time said he is unaware of any incident like Tim described. Tim's father said Tim may have been involved in a shooting and "assumed the worst in his state of mind.")
At the end of his leave, Tim didn't want to go back to Iraq, but he didn't not want to go back, either. More than anything, he couldn't stand being away from his unit.
He returned home for good in March 2005. His deployment had included some mental health screening, but he told his father that it was "a joke." Soldiers coming off months of active duty would say anything during the screenings. "All they wanted to do was get home," his father said.
That was a feeling shared by Tim's commander in Iraq, Maj. Mike Kessel of Mahomet, Ill., who recently retired after 21 years in the Army National Guard. Two months before his unit returned home to Illinois, Kessel urged his bosses to change the demobilization process by letting the soldiers go home briefly before returning for health screening.
"I knew we were going to have problems," Kessel said. But his proposal was rejected.
"We got off the bus, we had a five-minute ceremony, and, boom, we were released," he said. "We didn't come back to drill for 110 days. Suddenly, your support system is gone. We had 120 people in 70 communities spread across five states."
Tim came home and tried to dive back into his life, working his electrical job and volunteering at the fire department. He'd be pleasant one minute and flip out over mild annoyances the next.
"I don't feel right here," Tim admitted during a rare candid conversation with his sister Michelle. "I'm spending too much time in the bar," he added.
Tim took a six-week National Guard assignment to help with the Hurricane Katrina recovery. His family said he relished the structure of the unit. He even began talking about the possibility of going back to Iraq.
"What better place for a soldier to die," he told his father one night.
In November, Tim scheduled an appointment with the VA. His father wasn't sure what it was for—mental issues, or perhaps follow-up for a hand injury that Tim had suffered in Iraq.
The night before Thanksgiving, Tim had a great conversation with his father and his sister. He seemed his old, jovial self. His family now believes that by then he already knew what he was about to do.
The next day, Tim didn't show up for an extended-family Thanksgiving dinner. They called and called. Finally, Mike Bowman decided to see if Tim was at the family business. He found him on the floor, shot but still breathing.
Tim died two hours later.
At Tim's funeral, Kessel, his commanding officer, found that several other soldiers were having mental troubles, too—and having trouble getting into the VA.
"They were told, `We can't get you in for six months,'" Kessel said. "We started pulling a bunch of strings and making lots of noise, and then people started listening.
"But it was one soldier too late."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't used to be this bad.
John Wixom, a burly 58-year-old with a full gray beard and long brown hair, has been in Carlsbad his whole life, except for his year of service during the Vietnam War.
He works at a potash mine east of town, maintaining its vehicles and equipment. All along, he's had trouble dealing with other people, with crowds, with Fourth of July fireworks. He flies off the handle with little provocation. "I get so mad I want to choke somebody, and I'm afraid I will choke somebody," he said.
At work, he said, colleagues drop heavy tools or whack a big metal drum "just to see me jump."
"Everybody at work knows what a Wix fit is," Wixom said.
After 35 years of suppressing his rage and drinking away his memories of Vietnam, Wixom said that his emotions are erupting more regularly. He has night sweats two to four times a week and nightmares regularly—apparently provoked by the latest war news from Iraq.
"I didn't used to be this bad," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tough old soldier battles new enemy: Suicide epidemic
By Halimah Abdullah McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel Rhodes keeps pictures of the dead in his pockets.
They're the faces of young soldiers whose eyes stare out resolutely from photocopied pages worn and creased by the ritual of unfolding them, smoothing them flat and refolding them.
They're the faces of men who, haunted by problems at home or memories of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — the dead children, the fallen comrades and the lingering smell of burnt flesh — pressed guns to their heads and pulled the triggers or tied ropes with military precision and hanged themselves.
The pictures remind Rhodes of how close he came to joining them and how, sometimes when the sadness presses in dark and suffocating, he still mentally pens suicide notes.
"How many times have I written that letter in my head?" he said. "I still think about suicide, but when I start thinking about it I have to think, 'What's the impact on everyone I care about?' "
It's been roughly five years since Rhodes came home from his third tour in Iraq, and despite a highly-decorated 29-year career in the Army, a new book, more than a hundred speaking engagements and praise from the likes of Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, for his efforts in suicide prevention, Rhodes still wrestles with his own demons. When he speaks to crowds and gently holds up the photos of fellow servicemen who've committed suicide, it's as if he's holding up a mirror.
"It's not about me," he tells soldiers. "Every one of us can tell our own story. Start telling it. Change the culture of silence."
Rhodes is among a small cadre of senior non-commissioned officers and officers who're opening up about their journeys back from the brink of suicide — efforts that top military commanders applaud as they battle a suicide epidemic. The open support from the military's uppermost ranks for openly discussing a topic long considered taboo is a revolution triggered largely by both greater awareness and pressure to curb record-high suicide rates.
This month, the Defense Department reported that there were 160 reported active-duty Army suicides in 2009, up from 140 in 2008. Of these, 114 have been confirmed, while the cause of death in the remaining 46 remains to be determined. The increase in military suicides includes men between the ages of 18-30, mid-career officers and, increasingly, women.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military leaders have said the increase is likely related to repeated deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the stigma long associated with seeking treatment for mental health problems. Many soldiers are embarrassed to seek help and worried that doing so will hamper their prospects for advancement.
In response, the Pentagon has poured millions of dollars into new suicide prevention programs and thousands of hours on helping soldiers suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Through programs such as the Real Warriors Campaign, with its catchphrase of "Resilience. Recovery. Reintegration," the military encourages soldiers to help others by sharing their stories of sorrow.
Veterans such as Rhodes put a different face on grief.
"The one thing that I've found when talking to soldiers and leaders, a lot of the response has been, 'this is the first time we've had a senior leader who has dealt with this talk about it,'" Rhodes said. "At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much money we put into this system to change policies and whatever else. At the end of the day, it's leadership."
For Rhodes, 49, who grew up in Ringgold, Ga. and lives in the shadow of Fort Benning, near Columbus, Ga., where he once commanded troops, the Iraq war was a greedy ghost that stole him away for 30 months and gnawed at his marriage and his sanity.
He lost both during his third tour. Rhodes' sky cracked open in April 2005.
"The first hundred days, we didn't have a boy get a scratch. Then we lost two guys when their suits caught on fire. It started then. Then a couple days later we lost a few more."
Then the unit lost two captains — younger men with children and career aspirations.
"We arrived at the scene, and that was the first time I saw a human body in so many dismemberments. A young private walked over to me with a hand and said, 'What do I do with this?' I took his ring off and said, 'Put this over in that bag.' "
In all, he watched 37 soldiers die during his time in Iraq. Rhodes pushed on through heavy fighting, fatigue and a grief so deep that it threatened to swallow him whole.
Then one day, everything went dark.
"I woke up on the helicopter, and a young soldier put a card in my pocket and said, 'You've been serviced by Angel Flight.' "
Rhodes was flown to a military hospital in Baghdad and was diagnosed with PTSD. He made what he calls "a deal with the devil" and was offered an opportunity to slow down and receive counseling.
He was also prescribed medication for depression, which he rarely took. Soon he started sleepwalking.
"I'd tie myself to my bunk at night. One time I was found on top of my bunk and was brought back down."
Back home, his wife, Carol, found that she could relax only after 10 at night, figuring that the Army would never bring her news of her husband's death any later than that. His son, Sam, dropped out of college and joined the Army in the hopes of fighting alongside his father in Iraq.
That November, Rhodes was sent to Fort Benning to help lead a brigade. By day, he was a stalwart commander, barking out orders and in full control. At night he'd go back to his now empty apartment — he and Carol had divorced — drink and think about whether in death he might find some sort of respite from the nightmares and the overwhelming guilt he felt because he'd survived and others hadn't.
"I went to a friend's house, a retired veteran, I got a gun from him with bullets, and the next day I was trying to figure out when and where to do it."
Col. Charles Durr, the brigade commander, sensed that Rhodes was having problems and pulled him aside.
"He spent the day with me, and he recognized I was having issues; he didn't know I was considering suicide," Rhodes said. "It was just a very positive day. He told me I was doing a good job. When somebody says something positive to you and reinforces you're doing good things, it makes it seem better."
Slowly, painfully, Rhodes found his way back.
He met Cathy, a friendly Army IT specialist who made him feel new. They married in a small, spur-of-the-moment ceremony in Fort Benning's chapel, then dashed off for a whirlwind honeymoon in Las Vegas.
It was willfully impulsive, and it was the closest thing to normal he'd felt in a long time.
He also rediscovered a love of horses and found catharsis in stoking their smooth coats and silently unburdening all his troubles on his quiet, gentle companions.
Rhodes also came to realize that his father, William Rhodes, a highly decorated World War II veteran who'd saved the life of future Georgia governor Marvin Griffin in combat, also suffered from PTSD and drank to deal with his demons.
Fearing a generational curse, Rhodes told his son, who's currently serving in Iraq, about his own and his grandfather's problems, and he prays that the military's changing attitude about mental health might help spare Sam his father's and grandfather's fate.
He decided that he might be able to help others, too. So one day, following a presentation on suicide prevention in the Army, Rhodes went up to the facilitator and said, "I think I can help."
He has. Rhodes receives hundreds of e-mails every week from soldiers who pour out their hearts with secrets they don't feel they can tell their spouses or their commanding officers. He encourages them to get help, and every once in a while they do.
"The other week, we were at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, and we were walking into the building, an old theater, this E-7 (Sergeant 1st Class) was sitting there with his sunglasses. (Rhodes) said hi to him 'cause the guy looked disturbed," Cathy Rhodes said. "People came up after the presentation. This one soldier came up to him and had taken off his sunglasses, and he said, 'Sergeant Major, I want to thank you.' That really touched my heart."
George Harris
5 months after Iraq bloodbath, young veteran takes his life
By Cynthia Hubert Sacramento Bee
On March 7, 2007, Army Spc. Trevor Hogue was inside his barracks in Baghdad, describing his morning on the battlefield.
"I saw things today that I think will mess me up for life," Hogue typed to his mother, Donna, as she sat at her computer thousands of miles away from Iraq, in Granite Bay.
That day the young soldier, whose assignment included driving a Humvee through perhaps the most dangerous ZIP code on the globe, saw his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. Heads were cut off and limbs severed. It happened 30 yards in front of him, and he had never been so afraid, he told his mom.
"My arms are around you," Donna Hogue wrote. "You'll be alright."
But Hogue never really recovered. Last week, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the backyard of his childhood home. He was 24 years old.
According to the Army, soldiers are killing themselves at the highest rate in nearly three decades, surpassing the civilian suicide rate for the first time since the Vietnam War.
At least 128 U.S. soldiers killed themselves last year, a number that has risen four years in a row. The death toll could be even higher this year. Through April, 91 soldiers had committed suicide.
Hogue's death, because it occurred after he was discharged, is not included in those statistics. But his friends and loved ones believe he was a casualty of war as much as any soldier on active duty.
"You think that they are safe when they get back home," Donna Hogue said, tearfully reading printed messages that she and her son exchanged while he was at war. "They're not. The reality of the things that they experienced continues to haunt them."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VA system ill-equipped to treat mental anguish of war, 2/5/07
Iraq War veteran Timothy Bowman, of the Illinois National Guard, committed suicide in November 2005. He had been home from the war only 8 months.
FORRESTON, Ill—A year ago on Thanksgiving morning, in the corrugated metal pole barn that housed his family's electrical business, Timothy Bowman put a handgun to his head and pulled the trigger. The bullet only grazed his forehead. So he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger again.
He had been home from the Iraq war for only eight months. Once a fun-loving, life-of-the-party type, Bowman had slipped into an abyss, tormented by things he'd been ordered to do in war.
"I'm OK. I can deal with it," he would say whenever his father, Mike, urged him to get counseling.
A young warrior who spent months patrolling the treacherous highway that runs between the Baghdad airport and the city's fortified Green Zone, Tim received several medals and is set to be posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.
"Tim always referred to the National Guard soldiers as the Army's disposable soldiers," his father, Mike Bowman, said. "Six months of training to kill, 12 months of the nastiest duty in Iraq and then two weeks that the Army gave them to be re-educated back to civilian life.
"It's not humanly possible to readjust to civilian life with that type of treatment," he said.
In the small town of Grundy Center, Iowa, Randy and Ellen Omvig keep a large plastic freezer bag. Inside is a piece of torn paper with "Mom & Dad" written at the top.
When she first saw it in December 2005, Ellen thought it was a Christmas list from her son Josh, who had just walked out the front door.
Then she read the words:
"Don't think this is because of you," it said. "You did the best you could with me. The faces and the voices just won't go away."
The note indicated Josh's imminent suicide and went on to apologize for the pain he would cause. He said he had just received a driving-while-intoxicated charge—a surprise since he rarely drank. "This kills all hope of becoming a police officer that I ever had," he wrote.
By the time Ellen realized what the note was about, she ran outside. Josh was getting in his truck. She grabbed the side mirror, yelling hysterically that he would have to run her over before driving away. He yelled back, about a friend who had been killed in Iraq.
"Your battle buddy would not want you to die," she screamed.
"Mom, you don't understand," he said. "I've been dead ever since I left Iraq."
Josh shot himself in the head a few seconds later, as a police officer—and close friend—pulled up. His case made local headlines and has since become the inspiration for legislation in Congress to better prevent veteran suicides.
Josh Omvig had been a happy kid who signed up for the Army Reserves the day after he turned 18. He spent an intense 10 months in Iraq and then suddenly was home again. In the space of six days, he went from serving in Iraq to sitting at his family's Thanksgiving dinner table.
In the 13 months that followed, it was clear that Josh had changed. His parents urged him to get help. But he was convinced that showing up at the VA would go on his record, costing him a career in the military and law enforcement.
The Omvigs believe the nation faces a cascade of mental health problems.
"There are so many Joshes coming back now," Randy Omvig said.
In many respects, the Omvigs' story is remarkably similar to that of the Bowmans', whose son Tim killed himself on Thanksgiving Day in 2005.
It's impossible to know what goes through the mind of any suicidal veteran, or whether care would have made a difference. But as he tries to rebuild his life without his son, Mike Bowman is convinced that even a little care would have been better than none.
Tim Bowman joined the National Guard after Sept. 11 but before the Iraq war.
He was a charming jokester, a small-town kid who played musical instruments in high school, attended some junior college and then went to work in his family's electrical business in Polo, Ill.
He left for the war on March 4, 2004, his 22nd birthday.
Over the next 12 months, his assignments varied, but among them was helping patrol Route Irish, the treacherous airport highway. He told his father about having to bag body parts.
In his communications back home, Tim became an expert at withholding the details of his reality. He did open up once, however. Home for a short leave, Tim and his father stopped for a beer after a softball game. They got into their deepest conversation about the war and even talked about an episode in which Tim, as the last line of defense, said he was forced to shoot at a car—with a family inside—that had failed to stop at a checkpoint.
"He was really quiet as he told me—not at all the normal Tim," his father said. (His commander at the time said he is unaware of any incident like Tim described. Tim's father said Tim may have been involved in a shooting and "assumed the worst in his state of mind.")
At the end of his leave, Tim didn't want to go back to Iraq, but he didn't not want to go back, either. More than anything, he couldn't stand being away from his unit.
He returned home for good in March 2005. His deployment had included some mental health screening, but he told his father that it was "a joke." Soldiers coming off months of active duty would say anything during the screenings. "All they wanted to do was get home," his father said.
That was a feeling shared by Tim's commander in Iraq, Maj. Mike Kessel of Mahomet, Ill., who recently retired after 21 years in the Army National Guard. Two months before his unit returned home to Illinois, Kessel urged his bosses to change the demobilization process by letting the soldiers go home briefly before returning for health screening.
"I knew we were going to have problems," Kessel said. But his proposal was rejected.
"We got off the bus, we had a five-minute ceremony, and, boom, we were released," he said. "We didn't come back to drill for 110 days. Suddenly, your support system is gone. We had 120 people in 70 communities spread across five states."
Tim came home and tried to dive back into his life, working his electrical job and volunteering at the fire department. He'd be pleasant one minute and flip out over mild annoyances the next.
"I don't feel right here," Tim admitted during a rare candid conversation with his sister Michelle. "I'm spending too much time in the bar," he added.
Tim took a six-week National Guard assignment to help with the Hurricane Katrina recovery. His family said he relished the structure of the unit. He even began talking about the possibility of going back to Iraq.
"What better place for a soldier to die," he told his father one night.
In November, Tim scheduled an appointment with the VA. His father wasn't sure what it was for—mental issues, or perhaps follow-up for a hand injury that Tim had suffered in Iraq.
The night before Thanksgiving, Tim had a great conversation with his father and his sister. He seemed his old, jovial self. His family now believes that by then he already knew what he was about to do.
The next day, Tim didn't show up for an extended-family Thanksgiving dinner. They called and called. Finally, Mike Bowman decided to see if Tim was at the family business. He found him on the floor, shot but still breathing.
Tim died two hours later.
At Tim's funeral, Kessel, his commanding officer, found that several other soldiers were having mental troubles, too—and having trouble getting into the VA.
"They were told, `We can't get you in for six months,'" Kessel said. "We started pulling a bunch of strings and making lots of noise, and then people started listening.
"But it was one soldier too late."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't used to be this bad.
John Wixom, a burly 58-year-old with a full gray beard and long brown hair, has been in Carlsbad his whole life, except for his year of service during the Vietnam War.
He works at a potash mine east of town, maintaining its vehicles and equipment. All along, he's had trouble dealing with other people, with crowds, with Fourth of July fireworks. He flies off the handle with little provocation. "I get so mad I want to choke somebody, and I'm afraid I will choke somebody," he said.
At work, he said, colleagues drop heavy tools or whack a big metal drum "just to see me jump."
"Everybody at work knows what a Wix fit is," Wixom said.
After 35 years of suppressing his rage and drinking away his memories of Vietnam, Wixom said that his emotions are erupting more regularly. He has night sweats two to four times a week and nightmares regularly—apparently provoked by the latest war news from Iraq.
"I didn't used to be this bad," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tough old soldier battles new enemy: Suicide epidemic
By Halimah Abdullah McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel Rhodes keeps pictures of the dead in his pockets.
They're the faces of young soldiers whose eyes stare out resolutely from photocopied pages worn and creased by the ritual of unfolding them, smoothing them flat and refolding them.
They're the faces of men who, haunted by problems at home or memories of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — the dead children, the fallen comrades and the lingering smell of burnt flesh — pressed guns to their heads and pulled the triggers or tied ropes with military precision and hanged themselves.
The pictures remind Rhodes of how close he came to joining them and how, sometimes when the sadness presses in dark and suffocating, he still mentally pens suicide notes.
"How many times have I written that letter in my head?" he said. "I still think about suicide, but when I start thinking about it I have to think, 'What's the impact on everyone I care about?' "
It's been roughly five years since Rhodes came home from his third tour in Iraq, and despite a highly-decorated 29-year career in the Army, a new book, more than a hundred speaking engagements and praise from the likes of Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, for his efforts in suicide prevention, Rhodes still wrestles with his own demons. When he speaks to crowds and gently holds up the photos of fellow servicemen who've committed suicide, it's as if he's holding up a mirror.
"It's not about me," he tells soldiers. "Every one of us can tell our own story. Start telling it. Change the culture of silence."
Rhodes is among a small cadre of senior non-commissioned officers and officers who're opening up about their journeys back from the brink of suicide — efforts that top military commanders applaud as they battle a suicide epidemic. The open support from the military's uppermost ranks for openly discussing a topic long considered taboo is a revolution triggered largely by both greater awareness and pressure to curb record-high suicide rates.
This month, the Defense Department reported that there were 160 reported active-duty Army suicides in 2009, up from 140 in 2008. Of these, 114 have been confirmed, while the cause of death in the remaining 46 remains to be determined. The increase in military suicides includes men between the ages of 18-30, mid-career officers and, increasingly, women.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military leaders have said the increase is likely related to repeated deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the stigma long associated with seeking treatment for mental health problems. Many soldiers are embarrassed to seek help and worried that doing so will hamper their prospects for advancement.
In response, the Pentagon has poured millions of dollars into new suicide prevention programs and thousands of hours on helping soldiers suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Through programs such as the Real Warriors Campaign, with its catchphrase of "Resilience. Recovery. Reintegration," the military encourages soldiers to help others by sharing their stories of sorrow.
Veterans such as Rhodes put a different face on grief.
"The one thing that I've found when talking to soldiers and leaders, a lot of the response has been, 'this is the first time we've had a senior leader who has dealt with this talk about it,'" Rhodes said. "At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much money we put into this system to change policies and whatever else. At the end of the day, it's leadership."
For Rhodes, 49, who grew up in Ringgold, Ga. and lives in the shadow of Fort Benning, near Columbus, Ga., where he once commanded troops, the Iraq war was a greedy ghost that stole him away for 30 months and gnawed at his marriage and his sanity.
He lost both during his third tour. Rhodes' sky cracked open in April 2005.
"The first hundred days, we didn't have a boy get a scratch. Then we lost two guys when their suits caught on fire. It started then. Then a couple days later we lost a few more."
Then the unit lost two captains — younger men with children and career aspirations.
"We arrived at the scene, and that was the first time I saw a human body in so many dismemberments. A young private walked over to me with a hand and said, 'What do I do with this?' I took his ring off and said, 'Put this over in that bag.' "
In all, he watched 37 soldiers die during his time in Iraq. Rhodes pushed on through heavy fighting, fatigue and a grief so deep that it threatened to swallow him whole.
Then one day, everything went dark.
"I woke up on the helicopter, and a young soldier put a card in my pocket and said, 'You've been serviced by Angel Flight.' "
Rhodes was flown to a military hospital in Baghdad and was diagnosed with PTSD. He made what he calls "a deal with the devil" and was offered an opportunity to slow down and receive counseling.
He was also prescribed medication for depression, which he rarely took. Soon he started sleepwalking.
"I'd tie myself to my bunk at night. One time I was found on top of my bunk and was brought back down."
Back home, his wife, Carol, found that she could relax only after 10 at night, figuring that the Army would never bring her news of her husband's death any later than that. His son, Sam, dropped out of college and joined the Army in the hopes of fighting alongside his father in Iraq.
That November, Rhodes was sent to Fort Benning to help lead a brigade. By day, he was a stalwart commander, barking out orders and in full control. At night he'd go back to his now empty apartment — he and Carol had divorced — drink and think about whether in death he might find some sort of respite from the nightmares and the overwhelming guilt he felt because he'd survived and others hadn't.
"I went to a friend's house, a retired veteran, I got a gun from him with bullets, and the next day I was trying to figure out when and where to do it."
Col. Charles Durr, the brigade commander, sensed that Rhodes was having problems and pulled him aside.
"He spent the day with me, and he recognized I was having issues; he didn't know I was considering suicide," Rhodes said. "It was just a very positive day. He told me I was doing a good job. When somebody says something positive to you and reinforces you're doing good things, it makes it seem better."
Slowly, painfully, Rhodes found his way back.
He met Cathy, a friendly Army IT specialist who made him feel new. They married in a small, spur-of-the-moment ceremony in Fort Benning's chapel, then dashed off for a whirlwind honeymoon in Las Vegas.
It was willfully impulsive, and it was the closest thing to normal he'd felt in a long time.
He also rediscovered a love of horses and found catharsis in stoking their smooth coats and silently unburdening all his troubles on his quiet, gentle companions.
Rhodes also came to realize that his father, William Rhodes, a highly decorated World War II veteran who'd saved the life of future Georgia governor Marvin Griffin in combat, also suffered from PTSD and drank to deal with his demons.
Fearing a generational curse, Rhodes told his son, who's currently serving in Iraq, about his own and his grandfather's problems, and he prays that the military's changing attitude about mental health might help spare Sam his father's and grandfather's fate.
He decided that he might be able to help others, too. So one day, following a presentation on suicide prevention in the Army, Rhodes went up to the facilitator and said, "I think I can help."
He has. Rhodes receives hundreds of e-mails every week from soldiers who pour out their hearts with secrets they don't feel they can tell their spouses or their commanding officers. He encourages them to get help, and every once in a while they do.
"The other week, we were at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, and we were walking into the building, an old theater, this E-7 (Sergeant 1st Class) was sitting there with his sunglasses. (Rhodes) said hi to him 'cause the guy looked disturbed," Cathy Rhodes said. "People came up after the presentation. This one soldier came up to him and had taken off his sunglasses, and he said, 'Sergeant Major, I want to thank you.' That really touched my heart."
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Major Hasan--Still in the news
Brennan pushes back on Lieberman over Fort Hood shooting
Posted By Josh Rogin Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 12:49 PM
In a previously undisclosed letter, John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism advisor, pushes back on complaints on Capitol Hill that the Obama administration has not been cooperative with Congress over the Nov. 5 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.
"I do not believe this is a fair or accurate assessment," Brennan writes."Starting from the first moments after this tragedy, the President directed us to keep Congress appropriately informed."
Brennan goes on to detail the various briefings members of the administration have given to congressional leaders, committee chairs, and staffers, and promises that more information from the Pentagon, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the FBI is forthcoming.
The letter, addressed to Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins, is dated Jan. 27 and was exclusively obtained by The Cable. It is ostensibly a response to a Dec. 3 request by the two senators, who cochair the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, for certain unspecified documents.
To the Army's evident discomfort, Lieberman has suggested repeatedly that the Fort Hood shooting was terrorism, not a random act by a mentally disturbed individual, and vowed to use the committee to fully investigate the incident. The shooter, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, has been linked to Anwar al-Awlaqi -- the radical Yemeni-American cleric who has since become a top "kill or capture" target for U.S. intelligence agencies and Special Forces teams operating in Yemen -- but Hasan showed signs of deep emotional instability before his Nov. 5 attack.
In his letter, Brennan first refers to the massacre as a "tragedy," but he seems to hedge his language here:
The President has a solemn responsibility to protect this nation from future acts of terrorism. In sharing what we have learned about what happened at Fort Hood, he is confident that we can help prevent such senseless acts of violence in the future."
So which is it? Terrorism or a senseless act of violence?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This above letter can be found here:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/images/100127_Brennan_Response_to_Lieberman_and_Collins_1-26-10.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While I do not like Senator Joe Liberman (I think he is self-serving and is willing to sell his soul to stay in office) Ido agree with his assessment of Maor Hasan's actions. This article, written in November by the same author lays out Senator Liberman's position.
Casey vs. Lieberman on Ft. Hood Massacre
Posted By Josh Rogin Monday, November 9, 2009 - 2:22 PM
Army Chief of Staff George Casey took to the airwaves Sunday to warn the public not to overemphasize unconfirmed reports about anti-American and religious statements allegedly made by alleged Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan.
"I think we need to be very careful here about speculating based on anecdotes like that," Casey said on ABC's This Week, "We all want to know what happened and what motivated the suspect, but I think we need to be very, very careful here in these early days to let the investigation take its course."
He warned that any effort to prejudge Hasan as a terrorist or as having religious motivations could cause unnecessary and harmful effects for the 3,000 plus Muslims currently serving in the military.
"I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here," Casey said.
Meanwhile, Senator Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, was on Fox news talking all about Hasan's motivations and warning that the attack could be a new model of terrorism on U.S. soil.
"It's clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism," Lieberman said, "And therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11."
Lieberman stated that the evidence was not all in, but he went on to detail each and every reported allegation of Hasan's anti-American behavior, including reports that he compared suicide bombers to U.S. soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in war and that he shouted ‘Allah Ahkbar' during the attack.
"The fact that he did that at the moment of these murders - if that's confirmed, of course - raises genuine concerns that this was a terrorist act," Lieberman said, ""There's concern from what we know now about Hasan that, in fact, that's exactly what he was, a self-radicalized home-grown terrorist."
He promised to start an investigation in his Homeland Security Committee as to Hasan's motives. The Army declined to comment Lieberman's investigation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I appreciate General Casey's concerns, but this was an act of terrorism and the sooner folks understand this, the sooner we can learn how to ferret out these single terrorists and stop them in their tracks before they commit another heinous crime.
Posted By Josh Rogin Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 12:49 PM
In a previously undisclosed letter, John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism advisor, pushes back on complaints on Capitol Hill that the Obama administration has not been cooperative with Congress over the Nov. 5 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.
"I do not believe this is a fair or accurate assessment," Brennan writes."Starting from the first moments after this tragedy, the President directed us to keep Congress appropriately informed."
Brennan goes on to detail the various briefings members of the administration have given to congressional leaders, committee chairs, and staffers, and promises that more information from the Pentagon, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the FBI is forthcoming.
The letter, addressed to Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins, is dated Jan. 27 and was exclusively obtained by The Cable. It is ostensibly a response to a Dec. 3 request by the two senators, who cochair the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, for certain unspecified documents.
To the Army's evident discomfort, Lieberman has suggested repeatedly that the Fort Hood shooting was terrorism, not a random act by a mentally disturbed individual, and vowed to use the committee to fully investigate the incident. The shooter, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, has been linked to Anwar al-Awlaqi -- the radical Yemeni-American cleric who has since become a top "kill or capture" target for U.S. intelligence agencies and Special Forces teams operating in Yemen -- but Hasan showed signs of deep emotional instability before his Nov. 5 attack.
In his letter, Brennan first refers to the massacre as a "tragedy," but he seems to hedge his language here:
The President has a solemn responsibility to protect this nation from future acts of terrorism. In sharing what we have learned about what happened at Fort Hood, he is confident that we can help prevent such senseless acts of violence in the future."
So which is it? Terrorism or a senseless act of violence?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This above letter can be found here:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/images/100127_Brennan_Response_to_Lieberman_and_Collins_1-26-10.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While I do not like Senator Joe Liberman (I think he is self-serving and is willing to sell his soul to stay in office) Ido agree with his assessment of Maor Hasan's actions. This article, written in November by the same author lays out Senator Liberman's position.
Casey vs. Lieberman on Ft. Hood Massacre
Posted By Josh Rogin Monday, November 9, 2009 - 2:22 PM
Army Chief of Staff George Casey took to the airwaves Sunday to warn the public not to overemphasize unconfirmed reports about anti-American and religious statements allegedly made by alleged Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan.
"I think we need to be very careful here about speculating based on anecdotes like that," Casey said on ABC's This Week, "We all want to know what happened and what motivated the suspect, but I think we need to be very, very careful here in these early days to let the investigation take its course."
He warned that any effort to prejudge Hasan as a terrorist or as having religious motivations could cause unnecessary and harmful effects for the 3,000 plus Muslims currently serving in the military.
"I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here," Casey said.
Meanwhile, Senator Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, was on Fox news talking all about Hasan's motivations and warning that the attack could be a new model of terrorism on U.S. soil.
"It's clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism," Lieberman said, "And therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11."
Lieberman stated that the evidence was not all in, but he went on to detail each and every reported allegation of Hasan's anti-American behavior, including reports that he compared suicide bombers to U.S. soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in war and that he shouted ‘Allah Ahkbar' during the attack.
"The fact that he did that at the moment of these murders - if that's confirmed, of course - raises genuine concerns that this was a terrorist act," Lieberman said, ""There's concern from what we know now about Hasan that, in fact, that's exactly what he was, a self-radicalized home-grown terrorist."
He promised to start an investigation in his Homeland Security Committee as to Hasan's motives. The Army declined to comment Lieberman's investigation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I appreciate General Casey's concerns, but this was an act of terrorism and the sooner folks understand this, the sooner we can learn how to ferret out these single terrorists and stop them in their tracks before they commit another heinous crime.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
General finds "McChrystal Ball" in Afghanistan
McChrystal predicts “real progress” in Afghanistan by December
Posted: 26 Jan 2010 02:20 PM PST
With all the talk in Washington about Amb. Karl Eikenberry's leaked cables opposing President Obama's surge strategy, his military counterpart Gen. Stanley McChrystal is right on message, predicting the path to victory will be clear by the time the troops start to leave in the middle of next year.
McChrystal is setting six-month milestones for progress in a talk in Kabul, shown in this video provided by NATO TV:
"I believe that by this coming summer, it's going to be obvious to the people in this room that things have changed, but it won't be obvious to people 3,000 miles or 10,000 miles away," he says in the video, predicting progress just as additional combat troops begin to arrive
"I think by next December, we'll be able to show with hard numbers and things, real progress," McChrystal goes on, without getting into specifics. "We'll be able to go ‘Look, here's more areas we cover, here's this, this, this.'"
Here's the kicker:
"And I think by the summer of 2011, it will be enough progress where the Afghans and the Taliban particularly, believe it, believe they're not going to win," McChrystal says, identifying the breaking point of the Taliban as around the same time U.S. forces are slated to begin withdrawing.
Seeming to contradict himself, McChrystal also speaks at length about the need to have a sustained presence in remote Afghan areas to convince locals to take the huge risk of turning on the Taliban and siding with Afghan and NATO forces. He talks about the need to stay and prove to locals that their long-term interest is in supporting and even defending the government before the coalition can transfer security to Afghan control.
McChrystal also addresses the controversial issue of reintegrating Taliban fighters. Most foreign fighters can't be reintegrated, he says, and most local fighters won't switch sides -- they will simply decide to stop attacking the government forces.
"I think a lot of reintegration won't be formal," says McChrystal. "It will just be, you'll just notice there are fewer of them."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How does General McChrystal propose to do this? There is an old Arabian proverb that says: "Keep your friends close--hold your enemies closer." And that is exactly what the general and President Hamid Karzai are proposing. Their plan is to woo Taliban fighters away by offering them jobs, security by taking some of them of various hit lists and protecting themagainst retaliation and Karzai even wants to integrate some Taliban leaders back into the political scene.
This plan is going to be presented today in London. The hope is that those participating in the action in Afghanistan will provide the necesary funds (and perhaps troops) to make this work. Special envoy to AFghanistan, Richard Holbrooke agrees with the plan and Britain has announced it will help fund the effort.
Will this work? Only time can tell. Most of the tribes in Afghanistan have little faith in the government and in the karzai government in particular. The tribes themselves have trouble getting along together and within tribges, various factions often have uneasy an easy peace. It has just been announced that the largest Pashtun tribe in a major Taliban area, the Shinwari tribe, has decided to fight the Taliban. This is a significant break-through since this tribe has had members killed when they have attempted to fight back. But they apparently have had enough. We have been promised the Shinwaris a million dollars in various projects. This money will go directly to the tribal leaders and the local Karzai government will be left out of the formula.
Perhaps this is the first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel and if we had only known that such a prgram would solve the problem, we could have saved nearly 5,000 American lives and tens of thousands of wounded Americans whose lives have been altered forever. And this doesn't even consider the thousand and thousands of Afghans and Iraqis who have been killed. And the fiscal cost would have been far less. This could have meant that billions of dollars might have been available to the people of this nation. Coming up with an affordable health care plan would have been much easier with all this extra money around.
IMHO, we still don't understand these people and neither have others who have come to Afghanistan for various reasons. We simply don't undrstand how deep their religious fervor runs. We think we know the right thing to do--kinda like the power plant we have built in Afghanistan that is too sophisticated and too expensive for the Afghanis to operate. But USAID knew what was best.
Only time and many more casualties will tell.
Posted: 26 Jan 2010 02:20 PM PST
With all the talk in Washington about Amb. Karl Eikenberry's leaked cables opposing President Obama's surge strategy, his military counterpart Gen. Stanley McChrystal is right on message, predicting the path to victory will be clear by the time the troops start to leave in the middle of next year.
McChrystal is setting six-month milestones for progress in a talk in Kabul, shown in this video provided by NATO TV:
"I believe that by this coming summer, it's going to be obvious to the people in this room that things have changed, but it won't be obvious to people 3,000 miles or 10,000 miles away," he says in the video, predicting progress just as additional combat troops begin to arrive
"I think by next December, we'll be able to show with hard numbers and things, real progress," McChrystal goes on, without getting into specifics. "We'll be able to go ‘Look, here's more areas we cover, here's this, this, this.'"
Here's the kicker:
"And I think by the summer of 2011, it will be enough progress where the Afghans and the Taliban particularly, believe it, believe they're not going to win," McChrystal says, identifying the breaking point of the Taliban as around the same time U.S. forces are slated to begin withdrawing.
Seeming to contradict himself, McChrystal also speaks at length about the need to have a sustained presence in remote Afghan areas to convince locals to take the huge risk of turning on the Taliban and siding with Afghan and NATO forces. He talks about the need to stay and prove to locals that their long-term interest is in supporting and even defending the government before the coalition can transfer security to Afghan control.
McChrystal also addresses the controversial issue of reintegrating Taliban fighters. Most foreign fighters can't be reintegrated, he says, and most local fighters won't switch sides -- they will simply decide to stop attacking the government forces.
"I think a lot of reintegration won't be formal," says McChrystal. "It will just be, you'll just notice there are fewer of them."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How does General McChrystal propose to do this? There is an old Arabian proverb that says: "Keep your friends close--hold your enemies closer." And that is exactly what the general and President Hamid Karzai are proposing. Their plan is to woo Taliban fighters away by offering them jobs, security by taking some of them of various hit lists and protecting themagainst retaliation and Karzai even wants to integrate some Taliban leaders back into the political scene.
This plan is going to be presented today in London. The hope is that those participating in the action in Afghanistan will provide the necesary funds (and perhaps troops) to make this work. Special envoy to AFghanistan, Richard Holbrooke agrees with the plan and Britain has announced it will help fund the effort.
Will this work? Only time can tell. Most of the tribes in Afghanistan have little faith in the government and in the karzai government in particular. The tribes themselves have trouble getting along together and within tribges, various factions often have uneasy an easy peace. It has just been announced that the largest Pashtun tribe in a major Taliban area, the Shinwari tribe, has decided to fight the Taliban. This is a significant break-through since this tribe has had members killed when they have attempted to fight back. But they apparently have had enough. We have been promised the Shinwaris a million dollars in various projects. This money will go directly to the tribal leaders and the local Karzai government will be left out of the formula.
Perhaps this is the first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel and if we had only known that such a prgram would solve the problem, we could have saved nearly 5,000 American lives and tens of thousands of wounded Americans whose lives have been altered forever. And this doesn't even consider the thousand and thousands of Afghans and Iraqis who have been killed. And the fiscal cost would have been far less. This could have meant that billions of dollars might have been available to the people of this nation. Coming up with an affordable health care plan would have been much easier with all this extra money around.
IMHO, we still don't understand these people and neither have others who have come to Afghanistan for various reasons. We simply don't undrstand how deep their religious fervor runs. We think we know the right thing to do--kinda like the power plant we have built in Afghanistan that is too sophisticated and too expensive for the Afghanis to operate. But USAID knew what was best.
Only time and many more casualties will tell.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Suicides continue to climb
Back in November, I posted this question a friend had asked me about the status of mental health care in the military—
Do the military medical services still lack the capacity to adequately treat mental problems? As a PTSD sufferer myself I can certainly attest to this paucity of care in the past, but I had believed improvements had been made. Was I wrong?
At that time I wrote that despite the military’s best efforts the suicide rates were still climbing. And my conclusion was that things were not getting better. Well I am sad to say that not only are things not getting better, they are getting worse. It is a long read, but here is what McClatchy News is reporting as of January 15, 2010—
BY HALIMAH ABDULLAH
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Eight years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq have etched indelible scars on the psyches of many of the nation's service members, and the U.S. military is losing a battle to stem an epidemic of suicides in its ranks.
Despite calls by top Pentagon officials for a sea change in attitudes about mental health, millions of dollars in new suicide-prevention programming and thousands of hours spent helping soldiers suffering from what often are euphemistically dubbed "invisible wounds," the military is losing ground.
The Department of Defense Friday reported that there were 160 reported active-duty Army suicides in 2009, up from 140 in 2008. Of these, 114 have been confirmed, while the manner of death in the remaining 46 remains to be determined.
"There's no question that 2009 was a painful year for the Army when it came to suicides," said Col. Christopher Philbrick, the deputy director of the Army Suicide Prevention Task Force, in a statement, despite what he called "wide-ranging measures last year to confront the problem."
While the military's suicide rate is comparable to civilian rates, the increase last year is alarming because the armed services traditionally had lower suicide rates than the general population did.
"I look at the numbers of each service, and that rate has gone up at the same rate across the services," Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a gathering of military mental health professionals and advocates last week. "This isn't just a ground force problem."
Some of the suicides are young men, fresh from deployments and haunted by memories, who shoot themselves after they return from their second or third tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, or when romantic relationships turn sour, sometimes due to long separations or post-traumatic stress.
Others are career officers who quietly nurse addictions to drugs or alcohol and finally decide to silence their ghosts.
An increasing number are female soldiers, who rarely committed suicide before but now are killing themselves at a much higher rate.
"There does not appear to be any scientific correlation between the number of deployments and those that are at risk, but I'm just hard pressed to believe that's not the case," Mullen said.
The emotional wounds are so deep and the suicide rates are so high that top Pentagon officials broke a generations-long code of silence on the topic and have started speaking publicly and vehemently about the effects of mental illness.
At Fort Benning, Ga., which defense experts say ranks among the top installations for effective mental health screening, retired Brigade Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel Rhodes' speech to troops about how he considered suicide after serving for 30 months in Iraq encouraged other soldiers to come forward.
The military's shift in attitudes about mental health was evident during last week's joint Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs suicide prevention conference, where uniformed attendees spoke openly about the stigma of seeking mental health care, the need for policy changes that will make help easier to get and the importance of supporting the families of troops suffering from mental illness.
"It's a joint DOD and VA conference, that alone says an awful lot about where we used to be and where we are now," Mullen said.
With one of the highest suicide rates in the Army, Fort Campbell, a sprawling installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee border that's home to the elite 101st Airborne Division, illustrates the severity of the problem.
"Our issues here at Fort Campbell identically mirror the issues mirroring the Army as a whole. The demographics are almost exactly: white males 18-29 who commit suicide (using handguns)," said Joe Varney, the Fort Campbell suicide prevention program manager.
In 2007, Fort Campbell created a suicide task force after nine soldiers committed suicide, three during the first few weeks of October, and 101st Airborne's commander, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, reached out to soldiers and their families.
"As our soldiers fight terrorism, the sacrifices asked of them and their families have increased significantly," Schloesser said in a letter to troops. "Regrettably, under such circumstances, it is natural for our people to feel the stress of these demands and to be overwhelmed at times. Tragically, these pressures too often end in suicide."
The following year, Fort Campbell's suicide rate jumped to 12.
The base hired a suicide-prevention program manager and dispatched staffers to study trends, increased awareness training for troops and boosted the number of mental health professionals available to soldiers while in combat and after they return. Army officials say those efforts could prove useful service-wide.
Last year, Fort Campbell held a three-day "suicide stand-down," and top officials pleaded with soldiers to get mental help if they needed it and assured them that seeking such help wasn't a sign of weakness and wouldn't affect their careers.
The number of suicides increased to 14 in 2009.
"It's been discouraging to say the least," Varney said.
Stemming the rise in suicides will take more than conferences, task forces, training and studies, said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the director of behavioral health for the Office of the Army Surgeon General. The military also will have to grapple with the easy availability of handguns, a topic that's sure to be unpopular, she said.
"It's amazing to me when you see Fort Campbell, which is at the top of suicide lists. They have a beautiful gun shop in the middle of the (Post Exchange)," Ritchie said. "I'm troubled by what I see as a mixed message."
Some soldiers who receive counseling are still committing suicide, and many think - with good reason, given previous military policies and attitudes about mental health - that seeking treatment could ruin careers, she said.
"We cannot change stigma until we change policies that contribute to stigma," Ritchie said. "In many ways we talk out of both sides of our mouths."
The Obama administration, at the behest of a small bipartisan congressional group, is reviewing a long-standing unofficial policy that bars the president from sending condolence letters to the families of servicemen and women who commit suicide.
Family members of soldiers who've committed suicide said that changing the policy would go a long way toward removing the stigma because the military already provides a full military burial for soldiers who commit suicide.
"That policy reflects the heartlessness to those who served. They've been inflicted with hidden wounds, but it doesn't mean they're any less lethal," said Kevin Lucey, of Belchertown, Mass., whose son Jeffrey, a 23-year-old Marine, hanged himself less than a year after he returned from Iraq. The government settled with the family for $350,000.
Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, may well be on the right track when he says he is hard pressed to not believe that the number of deployments affects the number of suicides.
Despite setting up offices and people to study the “Why” of suicides, they continue to climb. Despite stand-downs and new policies to get rid of the “stigma”, our young men and women keep offing themselves. I, for one, think that repeated deployments to wars that seem to have no end in sight have everything to do with what is happening. Many of our young service personnel are on the fourth and perhaps fifth rotation and each time they go they see the same things, are exposed to the same roadside IEDs and suicide bombers and the same endless nothingness of a war. They see millions of dollars being wasted or stolen by governments and unprincipled contractors. They find they don’t have enough “stuff” to do their job and yet they a re sent back again and again. It is like the movie “Groundhog Day” with bullets and IEDs.
And when someone does kill himself or herself, they are treated like a pariah. There is an “unofficial policy” that the president won’t write condolence letters to the families of these war victims. The president is “reviewing” this policy. Reviewing it—Hell do away with it Mr. President. Don’t the figures tell you anything? By not expressing your sorrow and the sorrow of the Nation, you are adding to the stigma. This is an epidemic, just like the H1N1 flu problem—we need to mobilize and use every weapon we have to fight this epidemic.
More importantly, we need to ask ourselves why are we still in Iraq and Afghanistan. And unless we can answer we can actually prove that being there is keeping terrorists from our door, the we need to figure out how we get out with some kind of honor.
Do the military medical services still lack the capacity to adequately treat mental problems? As a PTSD sufferer myself I can certainly attest to this paucity of care in the past, but I had believed improvements had been made. Was I wrong?
At that time I wrote that despite the military’s best efforts the suicide rates were still climbing. And my conclusion was that things were not getting better. Well I am sad to say that not only are things not getting better, they are getting worse. It is a long read, but here is what McClatchy News is reporting as of January 15, 2010—
BY HALIMAH ABDULLAH
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Eight years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq have etched indelible scars on the psyches of many of the nation's service members, and the U.S. military is losing a battle to stem an epidemic of suicides in its ranks.
Despite calls by top Pentagon officials for a sea change in attitudes about mental health, millions of dollars in new suicide-prevention programming and thousands of hours spent helping soldiers suffering from what often are euphemistically dubbed "invisible wounds," the military is losing ground.
The Department of Defense Friday reported that there were 160 reported active-duty Army suicides in 2009, up from 140 in 2008. Of these, 114 have been confirmed, while the manner of death in the remaining 46 remains to be determined.
"There's no question that 2009 was a painful year for the Army when it came to suicides," said Col. Christopher Philbrick, the deputy director of the Army Suicide Prevention Task Force, in a statement, despite what he called "wide-ranging measures last year to confront the problem."
While the military's suicide rate is comparable to civilian rates, the increase last year is alarming because the armed services traditionally had lower suicide rates than the general population did.
"I look at the numbers of each service, and that rate has gone up at the same rate across the services," Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a gathering of military mental health professionals and advocates last week. "This isn't just a ground force problem."
Some of the suicides are young men, fresh from deployments and haunted by memories, who shoot themselves after they return from their second or third tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, or when romantic relationships turn sour, sometimes due to long separations or post-traumatic stress.
Others are career officers who quietly nurse addictions to drugs or alcohol and finally decide to silence their ghosts.
An increasing number are female soldiers, who rarely committed suicide before but now are killing themselves at a much higher rate.
"There does not appear to be any scientific correlation between the number of deployments and those that are at risk, but I'm just hard pressed to believe that's not the case," Mullen said.
The emotional wounds are so deep and the suicide rates are so high that top Pentagon officials broke a generations-long code of silence on the topic and have started speaking publicly and vehemently about the effects of mental illness.
At Fort Benning, Ga., which defense experts say ranks among the top installations for effective mental health screening, retired Brigade Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel Rhodes' speech to troops about how he considered suicide after serving for 30 months in Iraq encouraged other soldiers to come forward.
The military's shift in attitudes about mental health was evident during last week's joint Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs suicide prevention conference, where uniformed attendees spoke openly about the stigma of seeking mental health care, the need for policy changes that will make help easier to get and the importance of supporting the families of troops suffering from mental illness.
"It's a joint DOD and VA conference, that alone says an awful lot about where we used to be and where we are now," Mullen said.
With one of the highest suicide rates in the Army, Fort Campbell, a sprawling installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee border that's home to the elite 101st Airborne Division, illustrates the severity of the problem.
"Our issues here at Fort Campbell identically mirror the issues mirroring the Army as a whole. The demographics are almost exactly: white males 18-29 who commit suicide (using handguns)," said Joe Varney, the Fort Campbell suicide prevention program manager.
In 2007, Fort Campbell created a suicide task force after nine soldiers committed suicide, three during the first few weeks of October, and 101st Airborne's commander, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, reached out to soldiers and their families.
"As our soldiers fight terrorism, the sacrifices asked of them and their families have increased significantly," Schloesser said in a letter to troops. "Regrettably, under such circumstances, it is natural for our people to feel the stress of these demands and to be overwhelmed at times. Tragically, these pressures too often end in suicide."
The following year, Fort Campbell's suicide rate jumped to 12.
The base hired a suicide-prevention program manager and dispatched staffers to study trends, increased awareness training for troops and boosted the number of mental health professionals available to soldiers while in combat and after they return. Army officials say those efforts could prove useful service-wide.
Last year, Fort Campbell held a three-day "suicide stand-down," and top officials pleaded with soldiers to get mental help if they needed it and assured them that seeking such help wasn't a sign of weakness and wouldn't affect their careers.
The number of suicides increased to 14 in 2009.
"It's been discouraging to say the least," Varney said.
Stemming the rise in suicides will take more than conferences, task forces, training and studies, said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the director of behavioral health for the Office of the Army Surgeon General. The military also will have to grapple with the easy availability of handguns, a topic that's sure to be unpopular, she said.
"It's amazing to me when you see Fort Campbell, which is at the top of suicide lists. They have a beautiful gun shop in the middle of the (Post Exchange)," Ritchie said. "I'm troubled by what I see as a mixed message."
Some soldiers who receive counseling are still committing suicide, and many think - with good reason, given previous military policies and attitudes about mental health - that seeking treatment could ruin careers, she said.
"We cannot change stigma until we change policies that contribute to stigma," Ritchie said. "In many ways we talk out of both sides of our mouths."
The Obama administration, at the behest of a small bipartisan congressional group, is reviewing a long-standing unofficial policy that bars the president from sending condolence letters to the families of servicemen and women who commit suicide.
Family members of soldiers who've committed suicide said that changing the policy would go a long way toward removing the stigma because the military already provides a full military burial for soldiers who commit suicide.
"That policy reflects the heartlessness to those who served. They've been inflicted with hidden wounds, but it doesn't mean they're any less lethal," said Kevin Lucey, of Belchertown, Mass., whose son Jeffrey, a 23-year-old Marine, hanged himself less than a year after he returned from Iraq. The government settled with the family for $350,000.
Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, may well be on the right track when he says he is hard pressed to not believe that the number of deployments affects the number of suicides.
Despite setting up offices and people to study the “Why” of suicides, they continue to climb. Despite stand-downs and new policies to get rid of the “stigma”, our young men and women keep offing themselves. I, for one, think that repeated deployments to wars that seem to have no end in sight have everything to do with what is happening. Many of our young service personnel are on the fourth and perhaps fifth rotation and each time they go they see the same things, are exposed to the same roadside IEDs and suicide bombers and the same endless nothingness of a war. They see millions of dollars being wasted or stolen by governments and unprincipled contractors. They find they don’t have enough “stuff” to do their job and yet they a re sent back again and again. It is like the movie “Groundhog Day” with bullets and IEDs.
And when someone does kill himself or herself, they are treated like a pariah. There is an “unofficial policy” that the president won’t write condolence letters to the families of these war victims. The president is “reviewing” this policy. Reviewing it—Hell do away with it Mr. President. Don’t the figures tell you anything? By not expressing your sorrow and the sorrow of the Nation, you are adding to the stigma. This is an epidemic, just like the H1N1 flu problem—we need to mobilize and use every weapon we have to fight this epidemic.
More importantly, we need to ask ourselves why are we still in Iraq and Afghanistan. And unless we can answer we can actually prove that being there is keeping terrorists from our door, the we need to figure out how we get out with some kind of honor.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Major Hasan--How Did He Do It?
Our local fishwrap, The News and Messenger (January 12, 2009) carried an article that pondered how it was that Major Nidal Hasan was able to get through medical school and a psychiatry residency despite the fact that his performance all along the way was substandard.
Oh, if you only knew!
Let’s start with Major Hasan’s education at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, our nation’s military medical school. Medical students entering the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine are commissioned as at the entry level (2nd Lieutenant/Ensign) in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Public Health Service. They are paid at this grade for the four (or more) years they attend school but they pay no tuition, laboratory fees, etc. while they attend school. Once they complete school, they are advanced to Captain/Lieutenant and begin their internship and eventual payback for their “free” medical education. At this point, the government (the Armed Forces) has something approaching $500,000 invested in each graduating student. This does not count their pay and allowances. At the current pay scale, new students pay and allowances for four years comes to just over $271,000. Of course, this investment is greater for the student who doesn’t finish in four years as was the case for Major Hasan—the six year tally comes to more than $470,000. So the government has somewhere between three-quarters and nearly a million dollars invested in a new physician before they begin their internship and any specialty training. Hasan was promoted to Captain upon graduation and his annual income for the next four years was more than $385,000 (again, based on the current pay scale). This includes another year of training for master’s degree in public health—the cost of that schooling has not been calculated in this figure.
The Uniformed Services University has never been able to fully quantify just how much it costs to train a medical student because the school does much more than just train physicians. There are numerous PhD programs, research programs and other training courses that impact the cost of operating the medical school. But conservatively the government had something over $1.25 million invested in Major Hasan when he was transferred to Fort Hood.
Despite his poor performance in medical school and his residency program, those in charge of Major Hasan equivocated repeatedly on his Officer Evaluation Reports and on reports regarding his performance during his residency.
On May 17, 2007, Major Scott Moran, an Army psychiatrist and director of Major Hasan’s psychiatry residency training program wrote the following memorandum:
"Consortium Participating Instructions: Uniformed Services University of Health
Sciences, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Naval Medical Center,
Malcolm Grow USAF Medical Center
May 17, 2007
Memorandum for: Credentials Committee
Subject: CPT Nidal Hasan
1. I am the program director for NCC Psychiatry Residency Training Program. I
took over as PD in MAR 2007 and was Assistant PD from July 2006. I have
been a faculty member of the residency since July 2004.
2. This memo is based on my personal knowledge of and the documented
incidences in CPT Hasan’s Resident Training File.
3. The Faculty has serious concerns about CPT Hasan’s professionalism and work
ethic. Clinically he is competent to deliver safe patient care. But he
demonstrates a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism. In
his PGY-2 year, he was counseled for inappropriately discussing religious
topics with his assigned patients. He also required a period of in-program
remediation when he was discovered to have not documented appropriately an
ER encounter with a homicidal patient who subsequently eloped from the ER.
He did successfully remediate this problem. At the end of his PGY-2 year,
he was placed on administrative probation by the NCC GMEC for failure to
take and pass USMLE Step 3 and to obtain an unrestricted state medical
license by the end of his PGY-2 year; as a result he was not promoted to
PGY-3 on time. He did eventually complete step 3 and get a license and was
promoted to PGY-3. He was counseled for having a poor record of attendance
at didactics and lower than expected PRITE scores. One year he failed to
show for his PRITE examination at all. During his PGY-3 year, he was
counseled for being consistently late to NNMC morning report. During his
PGY-4 year, he was discovered to have only seen 30 outpatients in 38 week
of outpatient continuity clinic. He was required to make this missed clinic
time up using his elective. He failed his HGT/WGT screening and was found
to be out of standards with body fat % and was counseled on that.
Lastly, he missed a night of call for MGMC ER and then did not respond to
numerous pages by my office the next day.
4. Take together; these issues demonstrate a lack of professionalism and work
ethics. He is able to self-correct with supervision. However, at this point
he should not need so much supervision. In spite of all of this, I am not
able to say he is not competent to graduate nor do I think a period of
academic probation now at the end of his training will be beneficial. He
would be able to contain his behavior enough to complete any period of
probation successfully. My purpose in writing this letter is to give the
credentials committee the benefit of full disclosure and the opportunity to
modify CPT Hasan’s plan of supervision following initial privileging.
5. I did discuss this memo with CPT Hasan and informed him I would be adding
it to his initial credentialing paperwork.
6. POC is the undersigned and may be reached at 202-XXX-XXXX or email at XXX/
Sincerely,
Scott Moran, MAJ, MC
Program Director
NCC Psychiatry Residency Training"
Despite all of his reservations, Major Moran failed to stop then Captain Hasan from graduating. A careful read of paragraph 4 tells the story. It is this paragraph that lets Major Hasan off the hook as well as the author Major Scott Moran. It equivocates, back peddles, is wishy washy, waffling or whatever name you wish to assign to someone who is protecting himself and is obviously concerned about possible litigation--one of the biggest crimes I believe we face in our society. It keeps us from being candid just when we need to be.
Graduating, promoting and transferring Hasan were major leadership failures from medical school through residency training. I have said it before and I will say it again, physicians don't like to "rat out" other physicians. It is much like the Blue Wall of Silence found among police officers--fellow police officer don't "rat out" fellow police officers and physicians don't "rat out" other physicians.
There is plenty of room for blame here and I, for one, hope that is spread around on those responsible that they are appropriately disciplined. But I'm not making any bets on it--our leaders have become politically correct wimps--always concerned about litigation and their public persona. Where are the George Pattons, Chesty Pullers, and Bull Halseys when we need them? Gone to graveyards everyone.
There have been other instances over the years since the University was opened that medical students did not graduate in four years. How many? I don't know, but unless someone steps in and carefully reviews the procedures at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine that are used to determine whether a student graduates, is “rolled back” or is removed from training, there will be other Major Hasans—it is only a matter of time. The University had a major shakeup some fourteen years ago; perhaps it is time for another bottom to top examination.
Oh, if you only knew!
Let’s start with Major Hasan’s education at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, our nation’s military medical school. Medical students entering the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine are commissioned as at the entry level (2nd Lieutenant/Ensign) in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Public Health Service. They are paid at this grade for the four (or more) years they attend school but they pay no tuition, laboratory fees, etc. while they attend school. Once they complete school, they are advanced to Captain/Lieutenant and begin their internship and eventual payback for their “free” medical education. At this point, the government (the Armed Forces) has something approaching $500,000 invested in each graduating student. This does not count their pay and allowances. At the current pay scale, new students pay and allowances for four years comes to just over $271,000. Of course, this investment is greater for the student who doesn’t finish in four years as was the case for Major Hasan—the six year tally comes to more than $470,000. So the government has somewhere between three-quarters and nearly a million dollars invested in a new physician before they begin their internship and any specialty training. Hasan was promoted to Captain upon graduation and his annual income for the next four years was more than $385,000 (again, based on the current pay scale). This includes another year of training for master’s degree in public health—the cost of that schooling has not been calculated in this figure.
The Uniformed Services University has never been able to fully quantify just how much it costs to train a medical student because the school does much more than just train physicians. There are numerous PhD programs, research programs and other training courses that impact the cost of operating the medical school. But conservatively the government had something over $1.25 million invested in Major Hasan when he was transferred to Fort Hood.
Despite his poor performance in medical school and his residency program, those in charge of Major Hasan equivocated repeatedly on his Officer Evaluation Reports and on reports regarding his performance during his residency.
On May 17, 2007, Major Scott Moran, an Army psychiatrist and director of Major Hasan’s psychiatry residency training program wrote the following memorandum:
"Consortium Participating Instructions: Uniformed Services University of Health
Sciences, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Naval Medical Center,
Malcolm Grow USAF Medical Center
May 17, 2007
Memorandum for: Credentials Committee
Subject: CPT Nidal Hasan
1. I am the program director for NCC Psychiatry Residency Training Program. I
took over as PD in MAR 2007 and was Assistant PD from July 2006. I have
been a faculty member of the residency since July 2004.
2. This memo is based on my personal knowledge of and the documented
incidences in CPT Hasan’s Resident Training File.
3. The Faculty has serious concerns about CPT Hasan’s professionalism and work
ethic. Clinically he is competent to deliver safe patient care. But he
demonstrates a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism. In
his PGY-2 year, he was counseled for inappropriately discussing religious
topics with his assigned patients. He also required a period of in-program
remediation when he was discovered to have not documented appropriately an
ER encounter with a homicidal patient who subsequently eloped from the ER.
He did successfully remediate this problem. At the end of his PGY-2 year,
he was placed on administrative probation by the NCC GMEC for failure to
take and pass USMLE Step 3 and to obtain an unrestricted state medical
license by the end of his PGY-2 year; as a result he was not promoted to
PGY-3 on time. He did eventually complete step 3 and get a license and was
promoted to PGY-3. He was counseled for having a poor record of attendance
at didactics and lower than expected PRITE scores. One year he failed to
show for his PRITE examination at all. During his PGY-3 year, he was
counseled for being consistently late to NNMC morning report. During his
PGY-4 year, he was discovered to have only seen 30 outpatients in 38 week
of outpatient continuity clinic. He was required to make this missed clinic
time up using his elective. He failed his HGT/WGT screening and was found
to be out of standards with body fat % and was counseled on that.
Lastly, he missed a night of call for MGMC ER and then did not respond to
numerous pages by my office the next day.
4. Take together; these issues demonstrate a lack of professionalism and work
ethics. He is able to self-correct with supervision. However, at this point
he should not need so much supervision. In spite of all of this, I am not
able to say he is not competent to graduate nor do I think a period of
academic probation now at the end of his training will be beneficial. He
would be able to contain his behavior enough to complete any period of
probation successfully. My purpose in writing this letter is to give the
credentials committee the benefit of full disclosure and the opportunity to
modify CPT Hasan’s plan of supervision following initial privileging.
5. I did discuss this memo with CPT Hasan and informed him I would be adding
it to his initial credentialing paperwork.
6. POC is the undersigned and may be reached at 202-XXX-XXXX or email at XXX/
Sincerely,
Scott Moran, MAJ, MC
Program Director
NCC Psychiatry Residency Training"
Despite all of his reservations, Major Moran failed to stop then Captain Hasan from graduating. A careful read of paragraph 4 tells the story. It is this paragraph that lets Major Hasan off the hook as well as the author Major Scott Moran. It equivocates, back peddles, is wishy washy, waffling or whatever name you wish to assign to someone who is protecting himself and is obviously concerned about possible litigation--one of the biggest crimes I believe we face in our society. It keeps us from being candid just when we need to be.
Graduating, promoting and transferring Hasan were major leadership failures from medical school through residency training. I have said it before and I will say it again, physicians don't like to "rat out" other physicians. It is much like the Blue Wall of Silence found among police officers--fellow police officer don't "rat out" fellow police officers and physicians don't "rat out" other physicians.
There is plenty of room for blame here and I, for one, hope that is spread around on those responsible that they are appropriately disciplined. But I'm not making any bets on it--our leaders have become politically correct wimps--always concerned about litigation and their public persona. Where are the George Pattons, Chesty Pullers, and Bull Halseys when we need them? Gone to graveyards everyone.
There have been other instances over the years since the University was opened that medical students did not graduate in four years. How many? I don't know, but unless someone steps in and carefully reviews the procedures at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine that are used to determine whether a student graduates, is “rolled back” or is removed from training, there will be other Major Hasans—it is only a matter of time. The University had a major shakeup some fourteen years ago; perhaps it is time for another bottom to top examination.
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